PERSPECTIVES ON PRACTICE - The Myth of Change Management – A reflection on personal change and its lessons for leadership development.

NOTES ON THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Gravells, M.A., M.Sc., F.C.I.P.D.

Mob. 07971 400696

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Jonathan is an independent management consultant providing organisation development advice to a number of large and small businesses. Prior to this he was Director of HR at Carlsberg-Tetley and Express Dairies, following an early career spent in both H.R. and line management roles with Pilkingtons and Tube Investments. He has a degree in modern languages from Cambridge University and a masters degree in Coaching & Mentoring and Organisational Change from Sheffield Hallam University. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, a volunteer small business mentor, and is on the Institute Of Leadership & Management’s register of approved Leadership Advisers for IiP.

He has recently co-authored “Mentoring in Further Education” and “Leadership and Leading Teams”, (both published by Learning Matters), along with “A-Z for Every Manager in FE” (published by Continuum) with Dr. Sue Wallace, Reader in Education at Nottingham Trent University.

ABSTRACT

In this article I reflect upon my own personal learning when faced with significant individual change, leaving a corporate role to start my own business, and returning to serious study after 25 years of neglect. I look at the relationship between individual and organisational change, trying to reconcile the mechanistic models of change ingrained by years of practice with new insights gleaned from my own personal transition. Implications for change-agents include taking a more adaptive and multi-dimensional approach to change, rather than vainly trying to manage it. For people developers it may question the way we develop leaders and managers to cope with change. And all of us may decide we can be better at learning how to embrace perpetual change and perpetual learning as part of the same unpredictable process.

KEYWORDS - Change, learning, individual, organisational, emergent, programmatic, emotional, rational.

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The Myth of Change Management – A reflection on personal change and its lessons for leadership development.

Introduction

Until relatively recently, my perspective on change was the result of a long career spent as an HR Director, implementing changes of various sorts in organisations battling to come to terms with a new commercial reality. Like some accursed ancient mariner, I moved from the automotive sector in the mid-eighties to capital equipment in the recession of the late eighties, and from the brewing industry immediately post beer orders to the dairy industry post-deregulation. Rather than impose this jinx on yet another sector, I embarked a couple of years ago on some big personal and professional changes.

Such a move had been a long time in the planning stage. I was forty-five and approaching a scary crossroads in my life. Whilst others succumbed to the mid-life clichés of sports cars, body piercings and extra-curricular relationships, I spent a truly embarrassing amount of time dithering, before quitting my job as HR Director, starting out in business for myself and going back to university to do a Masters degree. Not only was this every bit as clichéd, but also, as it turns out, a piercing would probably have been less painful and an affair less damaging to marital harmony.

For this personal experience of transformation came as a painful and timely reminder of the unpredictability of change and the emotional impact it can have on the individual. A number of authors, some of them in this journal, have argued that successful organisational change happens only as the result of individual change, (Fisher, 2005) (Firth 1999) (Deming 1982), and that attempts to impose change on anyone other than yourself are questionable from both a functional and an ethical standpoint, (Douglas, 2004). Reflecting on the recent changes in my own life, I have tried to relate some of my learning to wider lessons about the nature of change and the myths that we sometimes cling to as individuals and organisations.

Accepting that not everything turns out as planned

After years of putting other people through the agonies of reorganisation, redundancy, expansion, harmonisation, re-grading and process re-engineering, I was about to come face to face with major personal change, and I was laughably insouciant about the whole thing. This is because I had been brought up, in common I suspect, with many managers, to believe in the predominant model of organisational change as a linear, purposive process. I had planned my changes meticulously, I had clear objectives, and I would project manage the whole transition to meet those objectives. Why would it be anything other than painless?

This goal-setting, programmatic approach to change, rooted in the machine metaphor of organisations (Morgan, 1998), is a tempting one for hard-pressed managers charged with bringing order and control to businesses. It is no surprise that it remains a powerful influence still. Like many, I clung to this picture rather like we all accept air travel safety instructions, in spite of an inner voice telling us that reality is likely to be a whole lot messier. The truth is that organisational changes, in my experience, rarely, if ever, pan out entirely as planned, and yet we find it hard to relinquish the hope that they might. It helps to reduce our anxiety. The appeal of five-step change models (or eight step or ten step) lies partly in the usefulness of the structure they provide, but mainly in the comfortable illusion that this structure is all you need to change things successfully. It’s reassuring to have that little light and whistle on your life-jacket, just so long as you don’t think too much about what use they will be.

And yet it is equally true that much of the stress we associate with change actually stems from our unrealistic desire to predict and control the outcome, (Firth, 1999). So should we embrace our inability to control the entire change process, and focus on helping people learn to live with a degree of anxiety, uncertainty and ambiguity? We know people’s responses to change can be irrational. As organisations do we spend our time trying to control this response, or learning how to handle the emotional and the irrational better than we do now?

Embracing the fear and uncertainty

My prevarication over the transition to self-employment was ultimately overcome, not by planning or by will, but by the unexpectedly uncomfortable shock of agreeing an actual date for my departure from my corporate role. Change can be emergent, prompted less by a carefully crafted vision and more by making people uncomfortable, by exposing them to grim reality and confronting them with a problem. It is easy to see fear as simply a barrier to change, a barrier which must be overcome by need, (Senge, 1990). My own experience was that change ultimately sprang from competing uncertainties, fear about career stagnation and survival finally overcoming my natural risk-aversion about leaving the warm embrace of the corporate salary package.

The point is that the individual and organisation are part of a wider reality. Our objectives are affected by the actions of others, making fixed goals impossible. This interconnectedness means accepting that change is not something separate from us that we can control, (Firth 1999). Some of the contacts I made in developing my own business have led to work, many haven’t. In some cases, it is the social activities which I have tried to extend, for different reasons which have created opportunities, and much of this might not have come about but for me undertaking the Masters programme. Most of these connections are invisible and unpredictable from my perspective, but I can see that a combination of changes in different aspects of my life have not only impacted on each other and created unexpected outcomes, but have also affected the nature of the change whilst it was happening. My intention in pursuing a Masters qualification was to gain skills, develop conceptual thinking and reflect more rigorously on my practical experience. I did not anticipate the impact that returning to academic study and interacting with a whole new group of people would have on my attitudes and beliefs.

So, was all my planning and project management a complete waste of time? Clearly not. In change, as in learning, more immediate sub-goals improve motivation and make plans more actionable (Reynolds et al., 2002). Thinking about context is important, as is the need to acknowledge what has gone before and why, before embarking upon further change, (Fisher, 2005). Quite apart from the positive ritual effect of helping people break with the past, understanding why things are as they are now is essential to changing them successfully.

For individuals and organisations sound planning and diligent execution play an important role, but one’s sense of security must be based less on planning and more on a willingness and ability to adapt. In other words, we must have a plan for change, but acknowledge the unpredictability of people’s responses, the inevitable knock-on effects that result from every action we undertake, and the general vagaries of chance and serendipity, (Kanter 1983). Constant re-planning, and short-term tactical flexibility are as important in change as long-range strategies. The idea of top-down change based on the leader’s vision, gives way to “adaptive leadership”, (Heifetz & Laurie, 1997), the ability to see connections and find meaning in the ever-changing circumstances which face us, (Lipman-Blumen, 2002).

Understanding how people learn

If understanding the individual’s experience of the change process is crucial to the success of corporate transformation, then at its heart is the intimate connection between learning and change. The same dynamic as drives the learning cycle drives the change process. We reflect on actions we have taken, in order to draw lessons and develop concepts which help us plan future actions, (Kolb, 1983), thereby fuelling both continuous learning and continuous change, (Firth, 1999).

Taking this a step further, we can draw a parallel between models of change and corresponding schools of learning, (Reynolds et al, 2002), (Cameron & Green 2004). One might argue that a more programmatic approach to change, the idea that we can change people, is likely to be driven by a behavioural or cognitive view of learning. To take just one example from my own learning contract, I could view my failure to undertake more outside interests in depth as the result of inadequate perceived “pay-offs” for me, leading to my behaviour remaining unmodified. Viewing the experience through a cognitive lens, I might conclude that I simply had not set myself clear or realistic enough goals, or overcome my self-limiting beliefs. That is what the “project manager” in me might conclude. But what if I had got off my behind and joined a local sports club or just had a go at a new activity and seen what happened? I might have been enabled to change through learning as social practice, discovering and building aptitudes, of which I was previously unaware.

This “messier”, more emergent view of change and learning, as knowledge construction and social practice, leads to a whole new set of assumptions, (Reynolds et al, 2002), (Megginson, 1996). Could it be that larger organisations have something to learn from the small business owner here? Research suggests that entrepreneurs typically learn via a series of “developmental crises”, (Cope & Watts, 2000), and that learning is a disjointed process, owing more to trial and error than formal training, (Deakins & Freel, 1998). Leaving a large corporate to go independent has certainly taught me the benefits of learning from networks and using dialogue with others to help me make sense of my growing collection of experiences.

Recognising when you need to do something, anything.

So, helping people to reflect, andexplore new ways of thinkingisgood practice, as is ensuring that managers are equipped with the skills to help people make sense of change, (Fisher, 2005). However, there comes a time when all this must be put to the test. Personally, I needed an occasional kick up the backside, and a structure to ensure I moved from analysis to action. Yes, real change is driven by underlying shifts in values and beliefs, but it can only come about and be recognised through what actually happens, (Smith, 2000). Ultimately, it is the reinforcing effect of moving from thinking to action, what has been called the “knowing-doing gap”(Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000), which drives both change and learning. Only by stopping talking and getting people engaged in doing can we gather the momentum necessary for real transformation. I made some of the greatest psychological strides in my own change efforts when I had to take action, however mundane; setting up a business bank account, presenting my new business proposition publicly, hiring an accountant.

Coping with resistance

So what of the power of planning to overcome resistance? I can recognise in myself many of the resistors to change cited in the literature. Fear of the unknown, the need for security, selective attention and simply habit have all played a part in my failure to develop some activities as far as I had intended. The traditional response of many organisations to such resistance is to deploy the armoury of programmatic change: project planning, regular measurement and review, training and development.

The learning contract integrated into the masters course provided the opportunity to review progress and reflect upon successes and failures. This kind of project management does have its place. No-one wants to own up to their learning set that they have done absolutely nothing to initiate the changes they had committed to. Nevertheless, this image of resistance to change being overcome by sound “change management” is too simplistic.

Resistance may sometimes be a good thing, a welcome opportunity to spot unexpected consequences or develop new “coalitions” and commitment. We must accept symptoms of “resistance” for what they often are: people’s natural responses to change, (Skalik et al., 2002). In setting up a business, my own networking often served as a useful “reality check”, highlighting unanticipated difficulties with what I wanted to do.

Enabling sustainable change

Whether it be keeping up that exercise regime, maintaining one’s network, or ensuring that regular performance appraisal becomes a management habit, our experience tells us that changes have a nasty habit of unravelling under the slightest pressure. Furthermore, as organisations sell the gospel of change ever more forcefully, they build up a core of “change survivors”, who know how to play the game without ever really changing their underlying attitudes & beliefs, (Duck, 1993).

Whilst smugly patting myself on the back for improving my networking, I had failed to recognise at first the difference between compliance and learning. I was still holding my nose whilst taking the medicine, forcing myself to undertake an activity, which at the first chance I would drop. Mentoring helped me to question my preconceptions. Only when I had succeeded in altering my fundamental mental model of networking and learned to see it as a positive, mutually supportive process was there a chance of it feeling natural (Senge, 1990). This is a shift in “being”, rather than “doing”, (Goss et al, 1993). It is a long-term and unpredictable process.

So maybe sustainability lies in getting the learning habit and enabling people to reflect more. Change will only become institutionalised as natural and habitual if it becomes part of who we are, our underlying beliefs and assumptions.

Nine months after moving into self-employment, I found it hard to use weekday time for leisure activities without a sense of guilt, despite sometimes working at weekends. I allowed myself to neglect the efforts I had made in developing a more fulfilling social life, by focusing solely on building a new business. Perhaps what has enabled me to recognise such “backsliding” and do something about it has been the habit of critical reflection. The final item on my learning contract, “learning to learn”, which, in truth, was something of an afterthought, will ironically have the greatest effect on my ability to change. Individuals and organisations who have mastered this “deutero-learning” are best placed to question the “theories in use” which bind them to old habits and ensure that they do not revert to type when the pressure is on, (Argyris, 1994).

Ultimately, this is where linear, programmatic models founder, ignoring the all-pervasive nature of change. Change, like learning, is a perpetual process (Paton & McCalman, 2000), and therefore requires the ability to re-plan and re-adjust not just what we know and what we do, but what we believe and what we are.

Conclusion

We should never underestimate the power of well-organised execution, of planning, review and evaluation, because this is a learning cycle too. But, as internal or external consultants, when “delivering” change in organisations, we must see ourselves as midwives, not Federal Express. We cannot be entirely in control of the process, because it develops its own momentum and its own interconnected consequences as a result of external and internal forces and knock-on effects we cannot foresee. Because organisational transformation is the result of changes made by many individuals, then fear, emotion, and irrationality need to be seen as normal, as people question long-standing “mental models” and seek to understand what has gone before. Even assuming they manage to break with the past, individuals will experience disorientation in emotions, attitudes and beliefs before coming to terms with the “new”, and these will differ in nature, speed, order and outcome from individual to individual.

This has several implications for what organisations expect of their leaders and managers and how we, as HRD professionals, help to develop them:

  • Instead of being expected to control and project manage every aspect of a “change programme”, perhaps managers could be measured much more on how well they respond to change and the reactions of those who work for them.
  • Could we do more to help managers understand how to live with fear, uncertainty and ambiguity themselves and enable others do the same, without losing sight of long-term vision and objectives?
  • Could we give managers the coaching/mentoring skills to help others make sense of an ever-changing landscape, and learn to question long-standing beliefs and preconceptions? This might also improve personal reflection and continuous learning.
  • We can still encourage managers to use the goal-setting and review disciplines of sound project management, but more flexibly, accepting the need to adapt to new departures and not getting disheartened by natural responses that can look like resistance.
  • By combining critical reflection with the need to “have a go”, and being more tolerant of error, can we do more to encourage constant action, learning and adaptation?

(2776 words – November 2005 )